


Lay him right down

by campholmes



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Accidental Bonding, M/M, Potions Professor Draco, deadbeat harry, draco is perhaps david bowies cousin or something i dont write the fic the fic writes me, draco malfoy is a style icon, drugs and drinking AND smoking be warned, far too many classic rock references, fwb to lovers, really its a lot to take in
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:08:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26886370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/campholmes/pseuds/campholmes
Summary: The next morning, Harry takes Malfoy to his local grocery, where Malfoy proceeds to convince him to purchase seven different types of ice cream treats after nearly coming to blows in the frozen aisle. And then they go home and fuck some more, with ice cream and lying naked on the floor listening to music and smoking in between.And then Malfoy leaves their sex-den psychedelic dreamworld to visit so-and-so who-knows-where, and Harry writes him to come back after he’s only been gone the one day.(A love story, a hate story, a story propped up by vintage fashion, a what would you do if your ex-nemesis turned up to your party in blue eyeliner and bell bottoms story.)
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 10
Kudos: 96





	Lay him right down

**Author's Note:**

> title is from queen bitch by david bowie, and more bowie lyrics may show up throughout. i started this fic at the beginning of lockdown and now here we are. thank you for reading and fuck jk rowling

Malfoy stays for one night, Harry remembers, and then he’s out on Monday mornings buying groceries and smoking cigarettes in the back garden two months later, writing in his leather-bound notebook with Muggle pens.

It’s a slow fall. Harry is back from University in Egypt, five years of backbreaking work and getting the absolute least amount of sleep he’s gotten since the War. He comes back tanned and relaxed despite all of it, hating English rain more than he ever thought possible. He sleeps for three days, after hanging his shining diploma on the wall in the parlor, with all the pictures of his families and Luna in Singapore and he and Neville in giant wading boots, holding carnivorous ferns.

It looks at home there, in the middle of the wall, framed and adult. It screams competence and everything else Harry knows he may never truly feel. But he doesn’t want to face a job yet, doesn’t want McGonagall owling him at all hours of the day, and he wants summer in England free of looming plans. He has grand ideas and vague nostalgia of those years post-War, in the heat and dull of the goodness of all of his closest friends. He is under no delusions about how it will go- all of his friends have jobs now, and he’ll be spending time alone, but he covets laziness. Finds a decadence in it he’s never quite found in anything else.

That is, until he runs into Malfoy, wasted at one of Luna’s spring parties. His first back. Harry is twisted, _royally_ fucked, and sipping from his fourth mug of dandelion wine when through his personal cloud of smoke surrounding his designated beat-up old armchair, he spots that fucking head of blond hair. It’s- _he-_ is resting back against a sunny wall. The cottages’ low-hanging eaves and dried flowers suit Malfoy, Harry thinks. Perishes the thought. In having last seen him near seven years ago, his face has almost sharpened, but filled out all the same, his roman nose seems either sunburnt or flushed drunk.

Harry stares unknowingly at him, until a tug on his braid pulls him to his right, where Ginny is sprawled against the armrest.

“Go over,” she says. Harry feels himself blink at her. Slow as honey. She rolls her eyes. “‘Cmon.”

He doesn’t quite remember how, in hindsight, but soon he and Malfoy are standing in Luna’s bright kitchen, Malfoy snatching the joint right from Harry’s mouth and exhaling smoke in his face. Despite Malfoy’s extremely satisfied look of impish delight Harry cannot find it in himself to be annoyed. There is something tugging at his gut at the smile lines on Malfoy’s cheeks. Those weren’t there seven years ago. Malfoy’s arms are certainly more sculpted than previous. He is simply beautiful in the afternoon hours in Luna’s familiar house, too much so for Harry to be able to ignore it.

“New glasses,” Malfoy states, gently placing Harry’s joint back between his fingers. He makes a belated gesture to Harry’s face.

Harry nods. He doesn’t know what to say to this Malfoy, who is teaching Potions at Hogwarts but is also getting hammered at Luna’s at noon on a Wednesday after term, wearing an antique lace blouse and tight bell bottoms. This Malfoy who has put on muscle but is still thin and willowy to one side, whose cheeks look immeasurably soft. Malfoy studies him, then laughs lightly. Good-naturedly. Harry wants to make him laugh, he thinks, and feels himself blush.

Malfoy has a more careless air about him than he ever did in school, and a more sincere one, too. He talks almost in a whisper, his accent less posh as it had been. He leans in to Harry when he speaks, and he is wearing blue eyeliner and a little mascara. He has a single dangling earring on his left ear. He looks more himself than Harry has ever seen him, three silver cuffs on his arm over his shirt. He feels happy for him, that he seems so comfortable.

Harry likes that they’ve all become teachers, and helpers, how they’re all scrabbling to make something better out of what they’d left destroyed, what their parents destined to be ruined for them. Something about Malfoy like this makes his heart explode. He knocks his socked foot against Malfoy’s red clog.

“You’ve got freckles,” Malfoy says. Harry nods dumbly, again. He looks through his lashes up at him, and apparently that is all it takes for Malfoy to kiss him, up pressed against the sink, lips hot and exploratory, half down Harry’s stubbled chin, joint left forgotten in a bowl on the countertop. Harry’s fingers go to Malfoy’s warm waist, twist in his thick cotton t-shirt, pull up until they are touching bare skin.

Harry is fuzzy and horny, warm from the inside out and feverish with a kind of lazy need. He clutches Malfoy’s hair, strokes up his back, drowns in the sounds he makes in Harry’s mouth. Everything is slow and heavy. His heart is pounding, and he thinks that he can feel Malfoy’s heartbeat, too. 

Eventually, they both pull away and stare, Harry at Malfoy’s bitten lips and soft cheeks.

“Want a slice of cake?” He hears himself asking. Malfoy nods, laughing. Harry takes his warm, soft hand, and leads him to Luna, who is standing at the dessert table.

“Harry, Draco,” she greets them with a warm smile. Her drink has a crazy straw in it that spells her name. Harry assumes it’s a gift from Dean.

Luna cuts them slices of lazy-daisy cake with “Welcome Home Harry” written on in calligraphy-by-frosting in gold, atop the coconut topping. Harry winks at Luna’s serene acknowledgement of their clasped hands, and leads Malfoy again out to the garden, sits him down on the blue bench Harry painted years ago. The green is just popping out from the ground and from the budding flowers, leaves from brown dirt. The birds are singing in the early afternoon, near morning time. Malfoy lights a cigarette and Harry watches him smoke it. 

“You’re back,” Malfoy says. He says it as if he is volunteering the information to Harry casually, as if Harry himself was unaware. “I didn’t know you’d be back this year. For good, that is.”

“Missed me?” Harry laughs as Malfoy rolls his eyes.

“Obviously not,” he says, eyes flashing with something like delight. “Everyone else did, though. Terribly. Bemoaning your absence all through the decade, wishing you were here. Writing you and sending you gifts. Group photos for to send to Harry. You have a degree now, I suppose.”

Malfoy speaks quickly and matter-of-factly, as he gets more comfortable. Harry realizes that he’s always had Malfoy’s quick tenor memorized, like he could make Malfoy say anything in his head. Harry nods belatedly, though Malfoy hardly asked anything of him.

“Masters of Defence, yeah. Longform, Masters of Defence Against the Dark Arts, Dark Object Identification, and Cursed Miscellany.” Harry makes sure to capitalize the words vocally, the way his overeager University counsellor did. Malfoy snorts.

“Your classes in Arabic?” Malfoy offers Harry the cigarette, and when he takes it their fingers brush. Harry twitches slightly. Nods again. Forces himself to speak.

“Mixed. French and English, too,” he says. Malfoy’s long fingers circle his wrist and take his hand. He hums.

“He’s trilingual…” Malfoy muses to the plants. “I must say, Potter, I never assumed you’d be _smart_ , in school. In fact, you may remember-”

“Let’s say I do,” Harry cuts him off. Malfoy chuckles, a lush, posh laugh that Harry is ashamed to admit, even to himself, cuts straight to Harry’s core. Or his dick. Or both.

Here is Malfoy teasing Harry in a way he never has before, letting Harry in on the joke. He’s smirking and it is achingly familiar but also new, in the way his eyes are dark, dark grey with want and sparkling with joy. Harry takes it and decides he’ll run with it, leans into Malfoy’s space and sticks his nose into his hair. He inhales deeply, putting his hand across Malfoy’s lap and at the far side of him on the bench, so he is diagonally all across him. Malfoy’s free hand not gracefully holding his cigarette comes up immediately to his hair, tugs where it is coming out of its loose braid. Harry groans, takes his lips right to the soft, delicate skin of Malfoy’s neck. 

“Come to my house,” Harry says. Malfoy shivers. Harry can feel him hesitate, but then he nods. The way Harry’s spine lights up with shivers at his response almost makes him laugh, who would have thought. Him and Malfoy. Maybe there was something in the cake.

“Apparate us?” Draco grunts. Harry pulls away and looks up through the kitchen window. Everyone is still inside, but nobody seems to be looking around for them.

“And leave my own welcome home party?”

Draco raises his eyebrows in question. Harry laughs again, shakes his head. He takes Draco’s hands in his and apparates them into his front hallway.

-

Two weeks later, Malfoy has all but moved in. 

Harry had renovated Grimmauld six years before, when he was lacking a proper job or a proper sense of motivation for anything otherwise than the simplicity of being as lazy as he possibly could. He was interested mainly in allowing the days to stretch painfully long so as to milk them for all they were worth, drinking, smoking, and going to gay bars with Ginny and maybe sometimes Neville and then Dean, when they spent a week hooking up and chasing as many threesomes as possible. It had all ended in an ill-advised orgy and radio silence from all parties for three years. In the midst of all of it, though, Harry had developed an obsession with making his living conditions as decadent and comfortable as he could possibly.

He had blown his Order of Merlin cash on furniture, antique to vintage mid-century modern and everything in-between. He had spent three straight weeks painting and putting up the most bizarre wallpapers he could find, magical and Muggle. He had charmed each bathroom’s white tiles a different color and pattern, to the point that when even Luna came to stay for a couple days to help out she had strongly encouraged him to reconsider the whole operation and start collecting plants instead.

Which he did, and had commissioned Luna to paint the bathroom ceilings. And then, when all of it was done, he slept in each bedroom for as many nights as there were them, so as to admire his own handiwork.

The first night Malfoy had come home with him, from Luna’s party, he had stood open-mouthed at the entryway, and the living room where Harry had poured him whiskey, and then up the stairs with the orange shag carpet and then to Harry’s room, the former master, which Luna had insisted he allow her to paint. She had done a room-wide mural, the walls swept in plants and suns and moons, the ceiling covered in constellations. Sirius was up there, as was Draco. Harry hadn’t commented on it at the time, as he had assumed Luna did not know that he knew.

“Who’s done all of this?” Malfoy had asked, in his bed with the baby blue blue silk sheets and the Peter Max duvet, naked and so so pink himself, panting and desperate with his dick in Harry’s mouth. Harry had pulled off of him, delicious, sweaty at his tender hipbones, to great protest to answer.

“Me. And Luna. But it was all my idea, really. Commissioned her this room, and the bathrooms.”

“The- Merlin, Potter, don’t- get my dick back in your mouth, I’ll tour your fucking house later you arse.”

Harry had laughed, deep and caught in his throat, and Malfoy’s eyes had flashed dangerously, hungry. Harry had sucked him right back up.

And now, two weeks later, Malfoy sits in the library with the kelley green shag rug and the Tiffany lamps keeping the space dim but not cold to read up on whatever horrible things the Blacks had deemed important. And Harry lets him. Wants him to. It’s all very confusing and quite a bit to consider.

It now feels almost, tentatively, as though he belongs in the place. With Harry’s décor. And the house adores him, plies him with wine and fine whiskeys it won’t even provide to Harry.

Harry thrills in being back home full-time, being in a place of his creation instead of his thin-walled apartment in Cairo. He feels so spoiled by space, and color, in a place so radically different from anything the Dursleys would ever even _think_ of, that he doesn’t mind asking Malfoy to stay the night, and then keep staying the night, again and again and again until he doesn’t think he has to ask anymore.

Malfoy goes back after the second day to fetch some “blouses that cover his midriff” and that don’t give off the impression that he is a “druggie,” and ends up taking half of Harry’s bedroom closet with his creamy silk button-ups, pussy-bow blouses, and velvet flared pants. Harry spends enough time wondering why Malfoy’s adult style has seemingly been so influenced by Muggle seventies rock stars (and “druggies”) to warrant him asking Malfoy flat-out, but decides against it. They mostly fuck, anyways.

And Harry has no problem fucking and sleeping, for the most part, for the first week. He has been exhausted from travel and finals and his dissertation for so long that Malfoy in his bed is shockingly restorative. They hardly talk. Harry’s brain feels fried from school, and Malfoy keeps complaining about the same five students whenever they do take an hour here and there to debrief, so Harry assumes his situation is much of the same. They do not stop arguing. Harry just insists on kissing him instead of yelling at him- a much better use for Malfoy’s mouth.

They finally venture out to a club to dance on the eighth day, get much too drunk and stumble home much too early, and Harry ends up getting Malfoy to sit in the parlor with him late into the night with the sound system and all of Harry’s vinyl. Malfoy knows more Muggle music than Harry would have ever expected him to, more than Harry knows himself. He wants to ask why, but neither of them ask many questions beyond surface level, seeming to both of them understand that all this is is fucking, and enjoying non-judgement for as long as they can. It’s pure decadence, and Malfoy has an air about him that he is always wasted, or is merely floating through the world in his own head, where he is gracing everyone with his presence. And shockingly, Harry finds it hot. It goes quite well with his well-crafted presence, his whispering, and his perfectly fucked up hair, his necklaces and rings.

The next morning, Harry takes Malfoy to his local grocery, where Malfoy proceeds to convince him to purchase seven different types of ice cream treats after nearly coming to blows in the frozen aisle. And then they go home and fuck some more, with ice cream and lying naked on the floor listening to music and smoking in between.

And then Malfoy leaves their sex-den psychedelic dreamworld to visit so-and-so who-knows-where, and Harry writes him to come back after he’s only been gone the one day.

Smoking and eating yesterday’s leftover curry, he feels confident in his home and his adulthood and Harry wants Malfoy, wants to see him in his ancestral home that still has that construction and that magic despite being so changed. Malfoy leaving has convinced him of how badly Harry wants him here. And when Malfoy writes back to Harry after those two weeks of fucking and eating and fighting that yes, he’ll come back for dinner, and would Harry like him to bring food and wine along? Harry twitches and knocks his beer over, spilling it all down the kitchen table.

He’ll analyze his reaction later, once Malfoy is gone again.

Malfoy does come for dinner that night, his pink robes folding naturally into the front hall closet amongst all of Harry’s jackets and robes, like they belong there. He’s brought buttercups in a hot pink vase. He insists he has no clue as to their intended meaning but thought Harry would like the pink and yellow. And Harry kisses him hard on the mouth right there in the front hall, the vase tipping in Malfoy’s hands and dripping water onto both of their feet.

Malfoy is wearing the red clogs again, with denim culottes and a blue poet sleeve blouse tied in the middle of his torso. He has a silk scarf tied around his neck. Harry wants to touch all of his skin, what is visible and what is under those delicate vintage pieces. He can’t stop imagining pulling the ends of the little scarf to him, to bring him close up over the table and put his lips over Malfoy’s sweet nose.

All through dinner, Italian from Malfoy’s favorite place (which, to Harry’s pleasant surprise, hot in his gut, happens to be Muggle and not far from Grimmauld), Malfoy watches him with a kind of steady stare that makes Harry desperate to get down under the table and do him right there in the kitchen on the black and white tiles. He hasn’t bothered with setting the dining room. But he would do Malfoy there too, on the magnificent Black dining table, with Harry’s jadeite dinnerware breaking under them.

Malfoy seems different, more on edge. Like he wants to scream at Harry, like he’s being forced to come. Harry can’t help the way his slight barbs make his chest burn from the inside out, like he is on fire. He wants to snap Malfoy’s neck, a little, and then he wants to fuck him again. And then again, he hates him, after Malfoy mentions his aunt like it’s nothing.

After they’ve eaten, Harry gestures to the parlor, and Malfoy leads the way.

“You know, as a child, when I was very young, I spent a lot of time in this house.” His tone is smooth and neutral. Harry raises his eyebrows to prompt him to continue. “I would hide from the adults in the kitchen, there would always be some row that started between my father and my mother’s side. And I would see that nasty elf-”

“He’ll be here, somewhere,” Harry interjects. Malfoy shoots him a venomous look for the interruption. Harry holds his hands up in surrender.

“As I was _saying_ , I would hide in the kitchen and ignore that nasty elf who I always thought would tattle on me for sneaking around. And I would look out that window into the garden, and wish I could go get lost in it. It was always overgrown, for as long as I can remember. But I assume a hundred years ago it was quite lovely, and well-kept,” Malfoy goes on. He has a habit of doing so, of rambling with a drink held up and away from him, arm across the back of the loveseat shaped like a pair of red lips, which he also has developed a habit of sitting on. Legs spread. Because he looks good on it.

Harry hates how much he likes it. He makes himself a jack and coke as Malfoy continues. He watches out of the corner of his eye as Malfoy sets his wine on the lucite coffee table to untie and re-tie his silk shirt. Harry hates him a little bit then, so vain. Always so vain, with his hair perfectly done so that just one soft bit of it falls between his eyes once he gets drunk.

“And so, I said to my mother that I would despise having a family house like this one. So dark, and dreary, and horrible. And I’m certain that’s why you haven’t had any trouble in doing all of this work to it. I simply did not accept it as entrusted to me. So you could have it entrusted to you with no warring claims whatsoever,” Malfoy says. His words are softer from three glasses of wine, and his nose has that delicate red flush to it. Harry has been waiting for him to Floo, even though he hates him, and hates the things he says, and hates how he could possibly be a professor with this attitude. He wants to smack him, even though he can’t tell if Malfoy is being nice or mean. He can’t tell if he is flirting or simply bullying Harry, has lost the plot totally.

“Potter? Were you even listening?” Harry nods.

“Yeah,” he says. Malfoy rolls his eyes and shifts down in his seat. his bare toes wiggle on the hardwood floor, and he momentarily digs them underneath the purple rug beneath the coffee table. Harry watches all of that, because Malfoy’s delicate, pale ankles and calves are something to rave about. When he makes his way back up Malfoy’s bright blue denim pants and his little silk shirt to his grey eyes, he’s staring at Harry intently. And hotly. “I was listening.”

“You were not, come here,” Malfoy says. Again, so sure that Harry will come. And he does. He drapes himself across Malfoy’s lap, circles his arms around the back of his neck. “Come here.”

“I am here,” Harry says. Malfoy strokes his hair back from his forehead, where it is hanging in his face. Harry snaps his fingers and his drink comes to rest beside Malfoy’s wine on the coffee table. He disentangles himself from Malfoy’s body to take a gulp.

“Put something on, Potter. Something good,” Malfoy gestures to the turntable, and Harry groans loudly. “Come on, Potter. I want to feel bad, convince me to stay. Huh? D’you want me to stay the night? Put something good on, then. I might like you if you do.”

Malfoy’s lips are moving to his neck from his hairline, then, and Harry tears himself away to cross the room and pick some kind of something good out. He knows that Malfoy means the Stones, or something equally heavy, for his wine mouth and his mean streak. He’s in a mood Harry has never seen him in, in all his years of watching. Harry doesn’t want to cross him or encourage him, so he charms _Aftermath_ to play and is back in Malfoy’s space seconds later.

“You’re wrapped around my little finger, Potter,” he says. The music is almost too loud, but Malfoy is tapping in rhythm on his temple as he runs his nails gently across Harry’s scalp. “You’re all mine.”

“I am so not,” Harry mumbles. But Malfoy’s hands in his hair are getting him hard, as anyone’s hands would. Harry swears it to himself. His scalp is just sensitive. And if Malfoy gets him on his knees in front of the loveseat in a matter of seconds later with just his fingers showing Harry the way down, down, down, it’s just because he likes to be touched. Harry is a stupid girl, on his knees with his hands on Malfoy’s strong, wiry thighs and his lips kissing Draco’s dick through his underwear. He always wears what look like antique high-waisted panties. Harry can’t get enough of it, the creamy lace against his cut hips. Harry worries that his pants might rip- Sirius’ orange bell bottoms, groaning beneath his knees on the floor.

“Potter, you called me back here after one day I was gone. One. Day. And now you’re all over me, on your knees for me. You _so are_ ,” Malfoy says. His voice is high in his throat. He reaches to take his wine back from the coffee table as Harry sucks at his underwear. “And you’re good. And you want me.”

He is rambling again, and as he shuts himself up via wineglass he sticks his hand back in Harry’s hair. Harry shakes his head in protest, but he laughs onto Malfoy’s dick, too. Harry can feel the bass under his knees on the hardwood. Harry ignores the music and how it makes his cheeks burn, how Malfoy whispers along to _Under My Thumb_ like he was made to taunt Harry with it, and isn’t it a turn from them laughing in Luna’s garden except that then Harry is laughing anyways again, into Malfoy’s lap.

Malfoy starts laughing too, and pulls Harry up to kiss him. He pulls away and his eyes look frantic, scanning Harry’s face, like if he blinks he’ll forget it. Harry kisses him again.

“Can you taste yourself?” He asks Malfoy. 

“Yeah,” is Malfoy’s hot response. He gets his hands under Harry’s mustard crop top and yanks at it until Harry lets him pull it over his head. Malfoy pinches his nipples and bites at his neck, tugs on his hair so hard that tears come to his eyes and he almost comes in his pants.

“Come to bed, come on,” Harry says, flustered. He feels like he is floating on air, his limbs shaky. Malfoy lets him pull him up the stairs babbling on about how Harry is gagging for it and pulling at Harry’s hair.

“I’m obsessed with you and I hate it,” Malfoy groans as he is stretching Harry open.

When Harry wakes up the next morning, naked and sore on top of his bedsheets, Malfoy is gone.

Harry continues to write him. He doesn’t have much to do, and since Malfoy is suddenly skeeved out or put off by Harry, Harry can think of no better way to get him back than to write him. _He doesn’t have to respond_ , Harry thinks. So he sits out in the garden he’s been grudgingly trying to tame, at least the first twenty or so feet of it out from the back porch, and writes Malfoy.

He writes him about Egypt, and his friends there, and what his classes were like. He asks unashamedly what Malfoy’s NEWTS were in, and when he finished his Potions Mastery. He asks about Hogwarts, and if he likes teaching, and then he thinks better of all of it and burns the letter right then and there.

He starts over the next morning, after he’s finished going through all of Sirius and Regulus’ clothes he’d stashed in the attic while doing the remodel. He finds about twelve pairs of bell bottoms he thinks Malfoy will like and fit into perfectly, really just tiny little things that are much too long for Harry, he’s never been good at alteration charms, and too many of those puffy shirts and little velvet waistcoats to count. So he writes to tell Malfoy about that, to say that if he would like them Harry has them all cleaned and dust-free, hanging in the closet of the first guest room where he also keeps his dress robes, and he can come and peruse the selection if he so desires. Maybe he would have kept the clothes if he didn’t want Malfoy to come over so badly, but really, he can’t bring himself to try most of them on when he’s already imagined Malfoy inside of them.

It’s not much of a letter, but Harry doesn’t really know how personal he wants to make it. All he knows is that he _wants_ , and that this is all he can think of in the means of _getting_. So he signs off, penning that if Malfoy wants, Harry will be home all summer and he can come over whenever he pleases, really, but then decides against it and scribbles it out as best he can. He leaves it with a _Best, HJP_ , hoping it isn’t too formal or too personal. He feels a bit like he’s writing a professor about an extension. He sends it off anyways, gulping down his anxiety and twirling a lock of hair between two fingers compulsively.

Harry realizes he was absolutely not expecting a response in the moment the return owl comes later that evening and he is floored by it. Malfoy says that he would be “delighted” to come and look at the clothes, whenever he may be in the neighborhood. With absolutely no indication of when that may come to pass. In lieu of taking pity on Harry and saying he’ll come visit, however, Malfoy has provided him with three pages back-to-back of a diary-esque monologue, detailing his day up until the writing of the letter ( _bath, breakfast, tea with Pansy, the usual sort of thing_ , as if Harry _knows_ what the bloody “usual thing” is) as well as going in-depth on new legislation for ingredient regulation and how it will affect his lesson planning, Hogwarts faculty gossip he heard from Neville, whom Harry had no idea Malfoy was on speaking terms with, and his own personal beliefs about what the upcoming weeks’ weather will be like.

Harry reads it twice, and then falls asleep reading it that night, in the light of his starry bedroom ceiling.

In the morning light, when he wakes up to read the letter again against his better judgement, he finds it easier to send off a casual response, reminding Malfoy that he can come to look at those shirts whenever he feels so inclined.

Their correspondence continues as such for days.

Malfoy has a dual energy where he seems to be totally willing to write to Harry and be civil in conversation, but sometimes he will snap right back to his old ways. It isn’t an easy medium between the two but a hard boundary that gives Harry whiplash. It seems random and inconsiderate. Malfoy is driven by himself and himself only. Harry’s only comfort is in that Malfoy seems to want him, for how often he writes back.

Eventually, Harry is writing Malfoy that he misses him. In one drunken letter, he even ends up writing that he misses his cock, and wishes it was in his mouth, and if Malfoy wanted to come over right then he should and could and Harry would be waiting for him all night. And that he was sorry for everything and how it had ended up. But Malfoy had responded with much of the same, ignoring all of Harry’s frankly embarrassing pleas for attention. And Harry had passed out more or less immediately after he had sent the thing, after all.

Most days it feels as though those first couple weeks never happened. Harry wishes he could know why Malfoy changed his mind, what Harry could have said that night to make him pull back into such a strange polite detachment. But it doesn’t seem like much of a stretch, how Malfoy had wanted him and now ignores any and all of Harry’s advances. Harry feels it too, the awkwardness of being who they are and feeling like maybe they are operating on a wish that should not be fulfilled. Ex Death Eater and the Chosen One, maybe too much of a stretch.

But Harry doesn’t know, he thinks that maybe it’s rather perfect, to want Malfoy, who doesn’t look at him like most people do, filled with so much baggage Harry hasn’t asked them to carry.

So, he continues to work on the back garden while he waits for Malfoy. He wants to wait, because he wants him, and that is enough. He doesn’t mind it, almost, beyond feeling like he is stretched thin with need, because somehow he knows Malfoy will come back. And something to wait for feels like something to look forward to, and Harry has mastered finding things to look forward to to keep him going.

He finds a pond in the garden, hidden behind an overgrown hedge. It’s deep enough to swim in, and far enough across. Harry jumps in without thinking, the water so clear he imagines he could drink it, despite being in London. He spends the rest of the day out on the edge of the water, stripped naked, sizzling in the sunshine. Malfoy does not write him, and Harry stares up at the blue sky and waits. That night, he writes Malfoy for the second time that day, about the pond. 

The next morning, a humid Monday, Harry is in the kitchen smoking his first cigarette of the day and nursing an iced coffee when Malfoy rings the doorbell.

He nearly trips over himself making his way to the front door, opens it panting and hanging off of the doorframe like an idiot. Malfoy looks him up and down, judgemental as ever. Harry follows his eyes and is reminded he is only wearing his blue linen button-up, open, with his striped pajama boxers.

Malfoy, of course, is in a brown lightweight and so, so tight turtleneck, with light colored massive wide leg pants, suede ankle boots. The waist of them is so tight it looks like it might pop. All of it is covered by a purple velvet robe, and topped off with a wide-brimmed black hat. He brings his lit cigarette inside from the front step.

“Couldn’t dress up for me?” Malfoy asks. Harry rolls his eyes. He turns to make his way back to the kitchen, assuming Malfoy will follow, but Malfoy’s long fingers pull him back by his loose collar. Harry falls back into him, feels all of him against him. “Potter.”

He’s whispering in Harry’s ear. Harry turns and his lips are met by Malfoy’s, hot and wide open. Malfoy licks the corner of his mouth. The door is wide open to the street, yet no one can see them. Harry groans out loud against Malfoy’s soft mouth, reaches back to pull his hips against Harry’s arse. He’s hard, and Harry fights the urge to drop deadweight to the floor and take Malfoy with him.

Harry is so hard it burns.

“We should stay away from each other. You aren’t good for me. I’ve done all of this to be- I’ve tried to be a better person,” Malfoy breathes. Harry leans to try and capture his lips. His eyes are falling closed, Malfoy’s face blurring behind his eyelashes. “I’ve tried to be good. You make me want-”

Harry finally kisses him, pulling him in by the back of his neck.

“I am good,” he says against Malfoy’s chin. “I’m the most good. Goodest.”

Malfoy snorts.

“You are. But not for me,” he says. Harry pouts, looks up at him through his eyelashes. “Potter, I am serious. Deadly serious. You’re ridiculous and I despise you. And your hair, and your arms, and such. You’re entirely too much. You’re an eccentric. I simply cannot be with you.”

“ _Be_ with me? Who said anything about _being_ with me? I thought we were just fucking. You kept saying-” Malfoy cuts him off with a searing kiss, nasty and hard. Harry groans into him, presses his body up against him. Malfoy’s velvet robe cushions Harry’s bare chest. He pulls away, reaches behind to finally shut the door. “And, _you’re_ the eccentric, Malfoy. With your lace shirts and your single earrings and all of your _shit_ you keep talking, you wear fucking _clogs_ and miniskirts, Malfoy, what the fuck are you talking about-”

“Shut up, Potter. I mean I cannot be with someone who _rivals_ me, you idiot.” Malfoy takes him by the elbow where Harry is leaning onto him rather pathetically and drags him into the kitchen, sits him down at the table.

“But Malfoy. Hey,” Harry is watching him as he dithers at the coffee machine. He is still wearing his wide-brimmed hat. “Come here.”

“Potter,” Malfoy says. His voice is vibrating with warning. He turns to face Harry. “I swear to Merlin.”

“But we could be a power couple,” Harry says, grinning. “Come stay with me for the summer. Come on. Come here.”

“Why are you like this, Potter.” Malfoy crosses his arms. His sleeves are tight around his delicate wrists. He looks bad in purple, but also quite good, Harry can’t decide. He is just so pale. “I can’t give you what you want. What makes you think we’ll ever be different than we were before you left and came back all free-love and such? What in Merlin’s left nut are you thinking we’ll gain from each other?”

“Orgasms? I like to fuck you,” Harry says. Malfoy scoffs, that piece of hair falls between his eyes. He squints over at Harry from the counter. “But seriously. I like you. And I hate you, a little. But can we stop pretending we’re sixteen? I’m trying to put all that behind me… being as you’re here, and all…”

Malfoy rolls his eyes. Harry raises his brows and holds out his arms, beckons him over. And finally, the lump in Harry’s throat releases, and Malfoy inches over, ever serpentine, his big pants peeking through his robe, sets his hat down on the table and seats himself over Harry’s lap. All of his clothes feel heavy around him, drape over Harry’s legs and onto the floor.

Harry kisses him sweetly, makes it wet and warm and good. Malfoy whimpers into his cheek and wiggles down onto his dick unconsciously. He pulls back and rests his forehead on Harry’s. His smooth skin on Harry’s scar, so shocking in its delicateness.

“I still don’t know how I feel,” Malfoy whispers.

“Uh huh.”

“Potter. I’m serious. Give me time to think,” he says. Harry leans up, tries to kiss him again. His dick is growing harder under Malfoy’s sharp arse. Malfoy puts a hand over his lips to stop him. Harry licks his palm slowly, back and forth, as he waits. “I’m going to think about it.”

“Yeah,” Harry says, not understanding the point. He’s okay, so long as Malfoy stays for a while.

“Okay? I’m just going to let you fuck me, then. Nothing else. We shall… coexist,” Malfoy says. Harry nods, under his hand. Malfoy’s palm is soft and his hand is long across Harry’s face.

“Will you stay?” Harry asks, muffled. Malfoy nods. And it’s all the confirmation he ever needed. “Even if I am an eccentric?”

Malfoy nods again. Now he is so close that Harry can’t focus on his eyes anymore. He kisses the back of his own hand, where Harry’s lips hide.

“Are you gonna stay mad at me?” Harry asks. Malfoy smirks, shrugs.

“Maybe I will, Potter. It depends on how you want me,” he says. Harry’s eyelashes flutter, and his dick twitches under Malfoy’s arse. “Do you want me to be mad, hmmm?”

Harry shakes his head, but Malfoy cuts him off with an open-mouthed kiss. He bites down on Harry’s bottom lip, making him groan, and then pulls back, puts both of his hands in Harry’s hair to push his head back and expose his throat.

“Want me to snap your neck?” Malfoy asks in a whisper. His eyes are sparkling with mischief, and Harry squeezes his sides so that he yelps and almost falls from his perch. “You are horrible.”

“I’m not the one threatening violence,” Harry says, sticking his face into Malfoy’s chest, scraping his teeth over his shirt. Malfoy makes a frustrated sound and pulls them both up and off of the chair, up the winding staircase to Harry’s bed, where his hair fans out soft on the pillows and his arse looks so perfect in Harry’s big hands.

-

The next morning, after Harry has woken up to Malfoy in his bed, _finally_ , has made him breakfast and drank his coffee and read all his mail from McGonagall, he shows Malfoy the pond out back.

“I remember this,” Malfoy says. Harry looks in askance. “When I was very young. I climbed back here, once. I got in so, so much trouble, and they wouldn’t even let me swim in it.”

He looks as though he’s been fed a lemon, and Harry cannot help but laugh at him.

“You can swim in it now, with me. If you’d like,” Harry says. Malfoy shoots him a look that’s absolutely dripping with it.

“I’d thought,” he says. His sarcasm is absolutely noxious. Harry laughs at him again, strips off his boxers before he can say another word.

Harry eventually brings out the red metal patio chairs after they’ve dunked each other enough times to be waterlogged up to their ears, and they sprawl out on them naked in the hot sun. The muggy air is thick enough to hold in the palm of one’s hand, and Harry casts lazy sun protection charms all over himself and three times over Malfoy, he can’t help it. Malfoy’s stink eye is well-worth how hot his skin gets without Harry seeing any prospective burning happening. Malfoy looks so nice naked, all long and pale and stretchy. His body is so nice, and lovely, and to see him so naked all day in the sunshine feels like Harry is being let in on a holy secret, Malfoy’s body usually being draped in so many beautiful things, to be able to see him like this, insecure and warm. He keeps wrapping his hand around Malfoy’s ankles, bringing Malfoy’s feet up to his face to kiss the bottoms of them, and stroking behind Malfoy’s sharp knees.

They get hard and ignore it, even though Harry wants to put Malfoy’s dick in his mouth he won’t, he wants to see what Malfoy wants to do first, or he’s a little nervous by how much Malfoy seems to be opening up to him, or something. It’s a little romantic, though, to be half hard lying beside each other and just talking, looking at each other. So much so that Harry is glad for the sunshine and how it is concealing his embarrassed flush.

Kreacher eventually brings them whiskey and lemonade and croissants. Harry insists on feeding Malfoy his, bite by bite, Malfoy’s perfectly wonky teeth snipping at the tips of his fingers dangerously. Malfoy makes him giggle, when they aren’t fighting, and sometimes even when they are, like a real silent belly laugh kind of joy. It’s intoxicating, and Harry isn’t that drunk but he is seeing double by the time they are sun-warmed and too tired to stand being outside anymore.

Harry shoves Malfoy into the shower before him, naked and so pliable and agreeable from exhaustion. Malfoy leans his head on Harry’s shoulder while Harry soaps him up and kisses him down.

Harry likes to put his thumb right in the middle of Malfoy’s pink lips, his fingerprint at the part of his upper lip where it is more flat and long. Malfoy always opens his lips beneath it, but maybe someday he will sit still long enough for Harry to be able to trace his whole face. His roman nose, flushed pink with hot water, his sharp jaw, his arched cheekbones.

“You’re getting more freckles,” Malfoy says to him, near impossible to hear around the creaky pipes. “Freckles all over…”

“I’m half redhead,” Harry says dumbly. Malfoy snorts, kisses him on both cheeks where Harry knows his dimples to be, because Ginny would kiss him there, and then Dean, and now Malfoy, who is in his shower all over him. “Like you’re half veela.”

More stupid comments, and Malfoy is laughing even harder, pressing fingers beneath Harry’s cheekbones and rubbing up against his teeth through his cheeks. His palm cups beneath Harry’s chin, and he kisses him wet and uncomfortable right under the showerhead.

“Nice to know you think so,” he says as he pulls back. Harry rolls his eyes. “Which one was the veela, Lucius? Or my mother? Either way, you’ve got some debriefing to do.”

Harry ignores Malfoy, especially ignores _Lucius_ , like Malfoy is forcing distance between them, ignores him until they are drying off in the lunar eclipse bathroom, as Luna had signed by the door beside her name, when Malfoy pulls him close and tugs on his cock.

“You don’t want your kids to be redheads, too, then?” He says it against Harry’s lips. Harry wishes he could say his dick flagged at the mention of any Weasley, but with Malfoy’s hands on it it seems impossible under any circumstance and Harry shakes his head in confusion. “Ginevra, I mean?”

Harry knows what he means, _for fucks sake_ , and he bites Malfoy’s shoulder hard enough that he yelps.

“I don’t think there's much chance of any child of mine being a redhead,” he says. It’s what he decides to go with, in the interest of remaining neutral.

“You idiot, I’m saying figuratively. You don’t want little redhead babies?”

“Technically, they’d be at least one-fourth redhead any way it’d go,” Harry says, earning a quick spank from a damp hand. Harry squeals, shamefully, and Malfoy wheezes a long laugh. “But, no, not Weasley-wise. No.”

“Hmm. So curious, Potter. Thought you would for sure,” Malfoy says. His voice is low, and his grey eyes are trained at Harry’s hipbone. “Everyone was so certain.”

“Everyone doesn’t know much, then,” Harry growls, and then he’s got Malfoy pinned on his front to the counter, knocking Harry’s lotion and toothpaste down onto the floor with his elbows. Malfoy groans and reaches back to Harry’s hips, pulls them tight against his soft cheeks. Harry could cry for how much of a relief the friction is, his dick rubbing on Malfoy’s hole finally, finally, after a day of not being able to touch too much or too hard for fear of being chewed out.

“Get in me Potter, get in me, hurry, I can’t last forever you fuck, been waiting all day for you to get in me,” Malfoy says, babbling. Harry ignores him for as long as it takes him to calm himself down so he won’t explode from head to toe, then lubes Malfoy up with a gentle pat.

That night, after Malfoy has gone home to finish up just a spot of work, Harry floos Hermione before he can convince himself not to. She answers disheveled as usual, always in the middle of something. Harry envies her energy, always has.

“Harry! I feel like we haven’t spoken in forever, what are you up to? Want to come through? It’s just me, Ron is out with Arthur for dinner.”

Harry gratefully steps through without answering, and is immediately swept up into a tight hug.

“Hey, ‘Mione. How are you?” He asks into her hair. She and the house smell like cooking and cleaning, but also like parchment and ink and the halls of the Ministry, and her essential oils that she’s been using as perfume since fifth year.

“Lovely. Just lovely, really, everything’s going well at work and I’m quite busy but you know, aren’t I always,” she says.

“You are,” Harry says. He makes his way to sit at the kitchen table, and watches as she continues washing the dishes, half by hand, half by magic.

“So, to what do I owe the pleasure? I can feel you burning up wanting to say it, Harry. It’s Draco, isn’t it.” Her eyebrows are high on her forehead.

It is not a question. Harry hates how well she knows him. He wants to respond but can only nod. She rolls her eyes.

“I think it’s lovely, Harry, if you want to see him. I mean, we’ve all been hanging around him for years, really, he’s quite a bit different from when we were kids, you know. Much more himself, I think. Like his father isn’t hanging over his head so much,” she says. Harry agrees. “And I think that you two have always had something, really. You well obviously liked him a bit in sixth year, or couldn’t get him out of your head.”

“I hated him in sixth,” Harry says. Hermione laughs at him, so hard that tears come to her eyes, and turns away from him to the fridge to compose herself. “What. What? I did, he was a right git and I wanted to kill him, a bit. I nearly _did_ kill him, I mean.”

“Oh, Harry,” Hermione sets a beer in front of him at the table. “Sometimes you have to look at your past self and just laugh- I mean, you were _obsessed_ with him, so so sickeningly obsessed. You’ve always taken yourself so seriously.”

“I-”

“All I am saying, really, Harry, is that I know you have a thing for him and I think you should just tell him that you quite like him. Look at you, all cut up about it. Is he at Grimmauld now?”

Harry shakes his head miserably. She giggles at him again.

“So, put some rose petals on the bed for when he comes back, light some candles, you know, he seems like he would like that,” she says. Harry groans and tips his head back to stare up at the ceiling. “Harry.”

“I do like him,” he says. She pats him on the head.

“I know you do. He is quite something. Maybe you could drape your bed like a tent, with scarves and things, he likes that vintage Biba feel-”

“He always wears just one earring,” Harry says.

“I know. He is rather partial to that look.”

“And those silk shirts. Lots of suede. Little silk scarves.”

“Harry. I’ve known him for years, we see each other quite often. I know.”

“He wears strappy clogs,” Harry groans. It sends Hermione off again, laughing and going back to the dishes as Harry downs his beer despondently. “I feel like he hates me.”

“He does not. Merlin, you sound like a teenager. Why don’t you just talk to him, tell him you like him? I’m too old to be playing wingman for you. You’ve done all of these lovely things with your life, you’ve lived abroad, you’d think you could just confront your reality at home as well.”

“I’m trying, damnit, I’ve written him and tried to talk to him in person, but he’ll come for days and then leave me again as if it’s nothing, but then again, he said he was obsessed with me and then left for so long and ignored everything I wrote him.”

“I’m sure he likes you. I think you’re overthinking,” she says. She levitates the spices on the counter back into their proper places on the spice rack. “I think he’s just caught up in all of it happening so fast. You’re, well. A bit of a lot to handle, once you’ve put your mind to something. Which, Harry, have you thought any about-”

“Thanks, then,” he cuts her off. “I’d better be getting back. Not proud of it, but he’s coming back soon and I’d like to be there when, you know.”

Hermione rolls her eyes for the fifteenth time and shoos him towards the Floo with a careless hand.

-

Malfoy seemingly begrudgingly stays the next night, nights, days in between. He is in Harry’s space most of the time, and Harry really truly doesn’t mind it, not even when he interrupts Harry’s showers or insists on Harry’s absolute silence so he can finish just this last chapter. It is without a doubt dysfunctional. Malfoy is rude as ever. He berates Harry’s style choices and even goes so far as to comment on the décor, detailing _what he would have done_ , which drives Harry absolutely spare. But then Harry will spot one of the moles on Malfoy’s shoulder, or will stroke a finger along the sharp collarbone that sometimes peeks out of Malfoy’s silk shirts, and all will be well for as long as it takes for them to be annoyed with each other again.

But every so often Harry can see how he is getting through to his houseguest. A bitten-down smile here and there, or a hand ran through Harry’s curls when neither of them are even acknowledging each other.

Eventually, Harry has to owl his friends to really explain where he has been. He’s half surprised that Hermione hasn’t broken down the door yet from sheer curiosity, so when her next letter comes he responds immediately. He invites her and Ron over for tea the next day, figuring it doesn’t make much sense to wait.

“Writing?” Malfoy asks, sneaking into the parlor as always. Harry nods, sends Ron and Hermione’s barn owl out the window with his response. “Who to?”

“‘Mione. I’ve invited her and Ron for tea. You don’t have to be here, but. If you’d like, I’m sure they’ll bring pastries and stuff from this French bakery we go to, and there’ll be enough to share, and-”

“Potter. I’d be happy to join. You know Granger and I worked together, yes?” Harry nods. Hermione had led workshops on Hogwarts curriculums when he had been in Egypt. She had written him saying that she and Malfoy were going for tea regularly and that they had been revolutionizing, in her humble opinion, a more inclusive and well-rounded approach to Muggle studies. How Malfoy had provided insight into the topic, Harry hadn’t asked. He loves to imagine, retroactively, Hermione in her oversized cable-knit sweaters and Malfoy in his velvet pants chatting over tea.

“Right. Good, because I want you there,” Harry says. Malfoy scoffs, rolls his eyes all the way back.

“I know you do, Potter. I know you do.”

_Tea_ morphs into _lunch_ , and Hermione writes Harry to say that she’ll get sandwiches and a salad on the way. Harry sets the coffee table, not wanting to put Kreacher out with the dining room, and Malfoy dithers in the entryway and then in the kitchen, hidden away from the door once he realizes that he is right in the line of sight of the front window. Harry hates it. Malfoy is only making him more nervous to have his best friends over, something he has never experienced before now. Hermione and Ron had spent a month each year with him in Egypt just for a holiday, they’ve never been apart for long. He isn’t used to worrying what they might think. But Malfoy is worrying enough for it to pour out of him and spill right into Harry.

“Malfoy, can you-”

“Look, I _know_ you hate me being here, I’ll just go up to the study, I could be working on lesson plans, I have many, many things I could get done in this short time you would finally be out of my hair. Trust me, there is nothing I would like more,” Malfoy snaps. Harry looks him up and down, appalled. 

“I was going to ask if you’d grab me some napkins from the kitchen,” he says. Malfoy slinks out of his line of sight without a word. “So insecure.”

“I _can_ hear you, Potter,” Malfoy calls from the kitchen.

When Hermione and Ron finally arrive, Harry forces Malfoy to come with him and greet them at the door. He can feel him dithering beside him before he pulls the door open, but once it has opened and Hermione is in his arms, he knows Malfoy has composed himself to the utmost. He can see Ron shaking Malfoy’s hand enthusiastically from around Hermione’s hair.

“Oh Harry, it’s so lovely. How did I forget it? We didn’t really get around to visiting and checking up as much as I think you’d wanted us to, I just trusted that your charms would hold,” Hermione says, pulling away from him and looking all around, down the hall and up at the ceiling. “So lovely. And Draco, so lovely to see you, too.”

She pulls him into a hug of the same intensity she had served Harry, even kisses him on the cheek. Malfoy looks properly confused but also quite pleased. Harry swallows his giggle.

“I have everything set up in the living room, didn’t bother with the dining room, sorry,” he says. Ron crosses to grip him in a tight embrace. “Great to see you, mate.”

“Looks like you’ve got a little family here, Harry. Not so lonely in the big house, eh?” Harry rolls his eyes, ignores Malfoy going grey.

“It’s convenient. And nice, Ron,” he says. He has to ignore Malfoy’s little choking sound too, but he knows Hermione is analyzing their every move. “I like him.”

“You would, mate,” Ron says, settling into the orange armchair and wrestling a sandwich out of the takeaway container. “It’s so predictable, all of this.”

“Hey-”

“He isn’t wrong,” Hermione cuts in. Harry does sneak a look at Malfoy then, who looks as if he is about to faint. He covertly beckons him over to the loveseat, where he sits gingerly beside Harry. He clasps his hands on his knees and doesn’t speak a word until Hermione directly asks him a question fifteen minutes into the conversation.

Malfoy looks nice, wearing big grey wide-leg pants and a peasant top with a deep v. His hair is left fluffy and framing his face. He has his usual light eye makeup and a single gold hoop earring. Harry keeps looking at him, knowing Ron and Hermione will see but not caring. 

Eventually, when Ron is grabbing more coffee and Hermione has run to the loo, Malfoy turns to him haughtily.

“You are _staring_ ,” he says.

“You look nice!” Harry says. Malfoy clicks his tongue and turns away from him. “Don’t throw a tantrum, I’m serious. I think you look lovely today. Are you enjoying the lunch?”

“Potter-”

“Are you? Or are you not,” Harry asks. 

“Fine. It’s rather nice, yes. Merlin, you are something.”

“I _am_ something. Something you like,” Harry says. He knows he’s leering.

“Shut up. They could come back-”

“So?” Harry leans into his space, across the polite divide Malfoy has created between them. Malfoy leans away a little, but still tilts his face up to Harry like he wants to be kissed, and Harry kisses him, biting his bottom lip first, just gently. Malfoy leans in and Harry’s lashes flutter involuntarily, and then Ron is loudly exclaiming from the doorway about how excellent the coffee is, really.

Malfoy jumps apart from him so quickly Harry’s lips feel cold, but Harry scoots over closer to him for the rest of the lunch, so that their thighs are touching, Harry’s yellow and green seersucker pants beside Malfoy’s soft grey. Hermione’s laugh gets more and more relaxed as time goes on, and when they leave Ron thumps Malfoy on the shoulder in thanks.

Harry fucks Malfoy so hard after that his armpits ache from holding himself up and over him.

-

“It’s funny, when you think about it, how we ended up being the same kind of person,” Malfoy says, on a Sunday. They are sitting on the back porch, which had been the last thing for Harry to repair. He had stained it dark, like the wood of the big kitchen table. It is getting a little cooler than most Augusts, and September seems to be coming up quite fast.

Harry puts his round sunglasses up in his hair, squints over at him. He is reading the _Prophet_ , that permanent scowl he gets when he does deep on his face. They are close enough that Harry can see him, despite him being a bit blurry.

“How do you mean,” Harry says.

“Here we sit,” Malfoy says. Harry snorts, and waits. He knows more is coming, is so used to Malfoy’s casual theatrics by now. He watches Malfoy’s long fingers smooth over the wrinkle in the middle of the folded spine of the paper. “I mean, they’re all… the same. And we’re so different.”

Malfoy folds up the paper and drops it to the porch, turning to his side in the lawn chair to face Harry. He is wearing a pink shirt and pink wide leg pants. His pants always seem so tight around his dick, Harry thinks. He doesn’t know how he can stand it.

“Like, Seamus Finnegan. Gay, yes? But still so… like the rest of them. He wears jeans and sweaters from Malkin’s Muggle line, for Merlin’s sake. It’s all so _boring_. And all anybody ever talks about is sweaters this, scarves that. Pea coats. And I’m not saying it’s all awful, some of it is rather nice, but when it’s all paired together, I swear. My goodness, is it dismal. Greys and navy blues.”

Harry laughs, lays his book down on his stomach.

“You just say that because you’re incapable of toning it down,” he says. Malfoy scoffs, runs a careless hand through his hair. He jerks his chin up and Harry stares at the long lines of his neck.

“I just say that because I have _style_ , Potter, and I’m saying you do as well, so you’d do well to take the compliment. I’m not one to just hand them out.”

“You sure aren’t,” Harry laughs. “Thank you, then.”

“You’re welcome,” Draco says, and Harry flushes at how soft his voice becomes, how he looks over at Harry again with his cool eyes. “I like your pants.”

“Thanks,” Harry says. He’s wearing a pair of Sirius’ pants, a purple straight leg. “I like yours, too.”

“Thank you.” Malfoy closes his eyes, then cracks one open. “Could we go shopping?”

Harry laughs at him but nods.

It’s something they haven’t done together yet, and it surprises Harry how Malfoy gets them both high immediately, then takes him to a car boot sale and then to two Muggle sales out of their own mansions in London. Both are being hosted by older women dressed to the nines in all sorts of costume, and both of them know Malfoy very well, it seems.

The first woman is having an advertised sale with a few guests, and they do not stay long, but the second woman, Eva, welcomes Malfoy with a long hug, and kisses Harry on both cheeks. She has a faint accent Harry can’t place, and her home smells of incense and massive bouquets of flowers all down the hall and in what seems like every room. Her grey hair is twisted into a low bun, and she wears dark purple lipstick that matches her green velvet suit.

“Draco, darling, I’ve kept some things for you I knew you would love. These are from Pam, and then some of these we think were Anita’s, but we can’t always be so sure, can we. That’s the _rumor_ , darling. But I’ve kept them aside because you know, when you know they’ll be taken care of, you want to wait,” she says as she lights a cigarette and offers one to Malfoy. 

“Yes, thank you darling. I might have a few to trade this weekend if you are dreaming about it.”

“Ooh, any teasers? I’ve been telling the girls about your connections, you know, and they’re just dying to meet you and see your face, love. You know how they are, hangers-on.”

Malfoy nods, winks at her, lights his cigarette with a Muggle zippo Harry has never seen him carry. He wonders who is a hanger-on, and why. But the moment is so mysterious that Harry is content to watch. Malfoy is clearly in his element here, has a whole other life Harry had not a single clue about.

He’s put on his brimmed suede hat and a silk scarf to go out, and his shirt is so tight and the waist of his pants so tight that he looks impossibly skinny but also quite cool, and Harry is maybe just realizing it now, how he looks so retro with his outfit and his white ankle boots, cigarette hanging carelessly from his lips as he delicately sorts through two racks of clothes.

Eva disappears almost immediately, and comes back with a tray of gin and tonics with a charcuterie plate. She sits beside Harry on the low couch and hands him a drink.

“He really is so lovely,” she says. “And so talented at restoring vintage. Everything looks almost good as new, I’ll never know quite how he does it. You must be so proud.”

Harry starts, but Malfoy shoots him a sly smile, and he snorts.

“I suppose I am.”

“And you seem to have quite a style about yourself as well, don’t you? I must say, darling Draco is so mysterious, I had no idea he had a _man_. I was worried about him being lonely, you see.”

“Well, it’s. It’s all fairly new,” Harry says. Malfoy smirks around his cigarette and places a green jumpsuit on the pile Harry assumes he is taking.

“Well, dear. You keep him, he is special- and you match so well,” she says. Harry takes a generous sip of his drink and goes back to watching Malfoy methodically analyze the clothes.

“Harry, I want to see you in this,” he says mercifully, beckoning him over with a beautiful hand. 

Harry spends the rest of the day there with Malfoy, trying things on behind a little screen set up in the living room, standing before him and Eva and letting them analyze him. He leaves with half as many clothes as Malfoy, quite a few items. Something about the price seemed a bit low, like Malfoy and Eva were in on something together. He feels stunned by it all, and a little stupid. He should have thought harder, maybe, about Malfoy. Maybe he was close-minded to assume that Malfoy still hadn’t even spoken to a single Muggle in all his life.

“Hey, where do you keep all of these, anyways? Like, do you bring them to Grimmauld, or…?” 

They are walking down the street with two large duffel bags of clothes, and some hanging on hangers as well. Malfoy laughs down at him.

“Well, obviously I have some magical means of keeping everything perfectly preserved, in my closet at home. But these, now that we’re at the corner-” Malfoy pulls his wand from his back pocket and taps all of their bundles, and they disappear into the tiny bag over Malfoy’s shoulder. “Now, come. I’ll show you _my_ place, which you have never been to nor asked about, by the way.”

“I just had assumed-”

“Mmm. You know what they say about assuming, Potter.” Harry takes Malfoy’s outstretched elbow and is immediately apparated away.

They land, out of breath, in what Harry believes to be Malfoy’s living room. Harry had known he lived in an apartment in London, but truly had never asked more. He had thought that Malfoy hadn’t wanted him over, what with how he would pop over to Grimmauld and never ask Harry ‘round. 

“It really is not much at all. Just a stepping point, between Hogwarts and here I never much felt like I needed to buy much decoration, or furniture, since, well.”

Malfoy doesn’t go on, trailing off into silence. Harry looks around and confirms it to be so. There is not much of anything in the whole space.

“The couch pulls out into the bed, because, well, I sleep there, ‘nd come on now,” Malfoy pulls Harry along to the short hallway, the white walls unadorned with pictures or artwork. It isn’t at all what Harry had expected. He had thought there would be more Turkish rugs, and shawls draped over everything. He had imagined lots of pillows. Malfoy has rather generic furniture, in yellows and pinks, and not much else.

But, turning the corner, Harry sees what he means. What should have been the bedroom door is open, and inside is a veritable avalanche of clothing and accessories. Racks along every single wall, on the farthest wall two tiers up, and hats hanging all along above them. Malfoy has two large vanities, both of their drawers hanging open with various lacy items Harry is not going to consider, and pantyhose hanging out of them, spilling onto the floor. There is a small sewing table with a sewing machine in the corner, and Harry can feel the preservation charms the moment he steps inside. The air is cool and his ears pop.

Malfoy gestures for him to have a look around, as he pulls the clothing out of his tiny bag.

“Wow, it’s lovely,” Harry says. Malfoy scoffs.

“Of course it’s lovely. It’s my life’s work.”

He sounds young, his voice soft. Harry feels like Malfoy maybe hasn’t shown anyone this before. The room is lit with beautiful Victorian fringed lamps, in reds and pinks, and fairy lights twirled around the tops of the vanities. Harry realizes, as he is walking along and looking at the clothes, that there is a small corner with a worn armchair and fringed pillows with a little side table, where a book on groupie tell-alls sits, with a half drunk cup of coffee. It makes Harry’s heart skip a beat.

“You should be proud of this, Malfoy. It’s crazy, what you’ve done here. It’s incredible,” Harry says. He turns to face Malfoy, who is looking in one of the full-length mirrors on the walls.

“Thank you, Potter. Don’t go spilling secrets to anyone about this, though. I have things that people would _kill_ for, and I am not exaggerating,” Malfoy says, and he is wearing a faint smile that seems to be the most genuine one Harry has ever seen. He wants to kiss Malfoy badly, then, and doesn’t know if it would be too much, too romantic, if he feels like he is a little bit in love with him.

“I’m sure you do,” he says. His voice is shot, like he hasn’t spoken in days. Malfoy’s eyes go a little lidded. “Show me?”

Malfoy laughs, barely above a whisper. He steps towards Harry, in his hat and his little pink shirt. His elbows are sharp and fantastic. Harry reaches out to touch one.

“Why does this turn you on?” Malfoy asks. Harry shakes his head.

“You turn me on,” he says. Malfoy rolls his eyes. “I like that you’re good at things. I like that you’re cool.”

“You’re insane, Potter.”

“So are you,” Harry says, his lips so close to Malfoy’s that he can feel him breathing onto them. He’s addicted to the feeling of Malfoy’s breath. “Just look at those knit pieces.”

“Like I said, someone would kill for those, Potter.”

Harry kisses him, then. He wants to eat Malfoy up, swallow him down and have him live inside of him. Malfoy kisses him back just as hard, and Harry is high on the relief that Malfoy wants him as much as he wants Malfoy. They bite each other and Harry tugs him in so close his hat falls off, and Malfoy pulls him to sit him down on the red armchair, climbs onto his lap and pulls his dick out of his purple pants.

“God, you, you have style, Potter. I hate you- you don’t know anything about clothes, but you have fucking style,” he pants. Harry laughs through the kiss, smacking his lips against Malfoy’s chin and gripping his jaw hard in hand to keep his head in one place. Malfoy strokes him harshly so that he gasps and sees stars a little before he gains some balance in the situation.

“I think I like you,” he says. Malfoy’s hand stills for half of a half of a second, just barely long enough for Harry to realize it’s happening, but then he is kissing Harry even harder, whining a little into his mouth. “I really, really like you.”

Malfoy sobs, and Harry comes right then, so fast with the knowledge of what he’s said out loud and how Malfoy heard it.

“Oh my god, oh my god, Potter,” Malfoy says hotly.

Harry grunts and grips Malfoy’s arse to settle him down on his lap more, unbuttons his impossibly tight pants and pulls his dick out, so familiar to him by now, and Malfoy is sweating down his forehead where it is pressed to Harry’s so sweetly, and when he comes his pupils are so blown out Harry wants to weep.

Somehow they end up in Malfoy’s little living room, on the couch under a throw. Malfoy had insisted they both strip down to their underwear, and now he lies on Harry’s chest, making patterns in his skin with his finger. Harry keeps getting a chill, and then Malfoy will put his palm down where it starts and Harry will be warm again.

“You know, I’ve never showed anybody.”

Harry doesn’t have to ask to what he is referring to.

“I know. I mean, I’d gathered. It seemed private, and, that’s a bit why I didn’t ask, because you had never invited me here, and-”

“Potter. I know. It’s all right.” Malfoy looks up at him, pushes up to his hands and kisses him chastely. “Thank you for trying to valiantly to preserve my innocence and coveted privacy.”

Harry feels dumbstruck by Malfoy’s sweetness, even in his joking manner.

“I do really like you, you know,” Harry says in a rare moment of feeling like he will die if he doesn’t say it. Malfoy blushes a bright red.

“Yes, I. You were quite adamant.”

“I like you so much. I didn’t know that about you, today,” he says. Malfoy rolls his eyes, looks grateful for the subject change.

“Not many people do. It’s not exactly something I advertise, it would seem like, well, like I’m doing it to try and get back in the public’s good graces. When really, I’ve adapted to my environment. Eva is my best connection, she has the best things. I’ve been going to her for years. Any connection I have with Muggles is strictly selfish.”

Harry shakes his head. “No, you’ve made friends with her. She loves you, she thinks you’re _mysterious_ and _darling_. She likes you, too. Not the way I like you-”

“Potter…” Malfoy’s voice is low in warning.

“But she likes you. She adores you. It’s lovely, that you know her the way that you do. Even if it’s all in pursuit of someone’s stuffy old clothes.”

“Excuse me- Potter, way for you to make it all about love, in the end. I can’t take you anywhere.”

“You can. You can take me everywhere,” Harry says, simply because he is on a roll and now that he is started he absolutely cannot stop.

Malfoy ignores him, though, not without a cherry blush, and stuffs his face back into Harry’s chest.

They fall asleep there, and when Harry wakes in the morning, Malfoy is puttering about in his tiny kitchen with the coffeemaker, humming as he makes omelettes for the two of them, and Harry feels himself falling deeper and deeper down. Far beyond the point of no return, to a place where Malfoy’s straight back and thoughtful manner have him stuck here on this couch until Malfoy himself tells him he has to leave. He can feel it in his chest, like a string connecting them there, tied in little bows around their hearts. Malfoy is right- he can’t move for being corny.

They stay in Malfoy’s apartment for a little while. Neither of them having anything to do, both a blessing and a curse the whole long summer, Malfoy pulls him to one of the vanities and has him go digging through the drawers of lingerie to dress him. Harry puts him in a tight little bullet bra and matching panties with little bows on the hips, thigh high stockings and delicate garter belt, and then he ruins him and probably the whole set on the floor, fingers under Malfoy’s bra to pinch his nipples and mouth all over the panties to make him come.

-

Malfoy, once they are back at Grimmauld Place, shows Harry the empty bedroom on the second floor where he has been leaving a bit of his closet every day so that it is easier to be Harry’s “live-in fuck buddy,” as he calls it.

Harry relishes in the new feeling, though, that he gets from Malfoy. Even when they are sitting on opposite sides of the room, the air between them is warmer and Malfoy will look up at him with twinkling eyes that are so familiar by now, in a way much different than they were in school.

When they grocery shop, Malfoy leans over Harry against the cart, now, his nose in Harry’s hair as he reaches to the shelves, his warm front pressed against Harry’s side. It’s thrilling, it's so much closer than they had been before, and Harry had thought he had it good, then.

The one night Malfoy leaves to go out with Pansy, Harry feels almost physically ill. His heart hurts, and his stomach is rolling in disappointment. He feels insane, almost, like there is an itch he cannot scratch, a mistake he made that only Malfoy in his bed can fix. Malfoy comes home early, saying he felt awful at dinner, like he would vomit up anything he put in his mouth, and he and Harry end up sharing his leftovers in bed. They fall asleep without fucking, with Malfoy’s arms around his head and Harry’s face where his heart is, trying to get as close as possible.

The next day, there’s tension in the air that Harry had been dreading all week, knowing that something was bound to tip over and spill out. He feels uneasy, when Malfoy leaves to the bedroom to fetch his book, and a cigarette does nothing to stop his itching fingers. Finally, Malfoy opens his mouth, closes it, then must decide he should say it, whatever it is.

“We have to talk about why it hurts so much for me to be apart from you,” Malfoy says. Harry jerks to look over at him, sitting in the green armchair, reading glasses at the end of his nose. Harry opens his mouth but nothing comes out, like he’s a fish out of water. “I mean physically, you dolt. I can feel a pull, here. I realized it this morning, about what was happening at the restaurant. You said you were sick, too.”

Malfoy drapes the paper over the armrest and gestures to his gut. His knobby knees are crossed over, in his stripedy pants. Harry stares.

“Well? Do you feel it too? Potter, it feels like a bond.” Malfoy looks distressed, and suddenly Harry can feel it too, somewhere beneath his diaphragm, almost a tight wad of something that looks in his mind’s eye to be a thick rope that runs across the coffee table to Malfoy’s person. “Potter?”

“I feel it.”

It takes a couple of hours before they make it to St. Mungo’s. They get caught up in testing the bond, or whatever it is, Malfoy standing out in the street and Harry in the back garden, Malfoy all the way to the grocery and Harry seated dutifully waiting on the front steps. He can feel it stronger the farther Malfoy goes, when he is away Harry finds himself desperate for Malfoy’s touch, his voice. Like he felt those first days, wanting him so bad. He feels sick that he didn’t think it to be a bond, that he merely believed it to come of his own wishes.

But- really, something about it feels like it came from the two of them, something about the magic feels familiar and comfortable. Harry has dealt with cursed objects, has fought their magic off and placed them behind magical barriers without trouble while his classmates passed out or vomited onto their desktops. He’s experienced magic that tries to control him, he is immune to the _imperius_ curse, and this feels like none of it.

This is different. Harry knows nefarious magic, knows the difference intimately when something is trying to lull him into a false sense of security and when his own magic is making something to protect him. When he knew that he had sent that _patronus_ in third year, he knew it in his bones. He could feel it in his magic, the knowledge that he was wrapped up inside of that magic and reflecting it outward. He doesn’t know if he should tell Malfoy, or simply wait to hear more from a Healer.

The look on Malfoy’s face makes the decision for him, once he is back to Grimmauld. 

“It’s my fault.”

“What?” Malfoy is distracted with patting his pockets for all of his necessary items. “What are you on about?”

“I know it. I can feel it, Malfoy. It’s my fault, the bond. I did it somehow. Or, my magic did. It just feels too…”

“Familiar?” Malfoy still isn’t looking up at him, his eyes fixated on something on the floor. Harry can’t help it, reaches to lift his chin manually. “I can feel it too. My own magic, in it. It’s our magic, Potter, either we did this ourselves without knowing or something in the house… Either way, it’s not solely your fault. It’s on the both of us.”

Malfoy swallows visibly, looks as if he is going to be sick. Harry nods, sighs, despite feeling marginally relieved by Malfoy’s assertion. He reckons they should just go to St. Mungo’s, then. Malfoy agrees solemnly.

Their healer is younger than them, a witch Harry vaguely recognizes from Hogwarts, or maybe Beauxbatons. She is much more cheery than Harry thinks the situation calls for.

“Well, let me just get the diagnostics running, and we’ll see what’s manifested between the two of you! I’m not getting any hints of Dark magic at this point, from the preliminary runs. Does it feel foreign to either of you, like someone else's' magic you don’t recognize?”

Harry shakes his head, as Malfoy gives a haughty _no,_ from where he is seated with his legs crossed and a cigarette smoldering between his fingers. Harry hasn’t gotten over the way that smoking is accepted in hospitals in the magical world, still, but figures that there’s likely a magical cure for lung cancer, then. Or everyone’s just mastered charms for lung protection. Maybe he’ll ask the healer when she’s done with the diagnostic spell. Malfoy pokes his shoulder, bringing him back down to Earth.

“Hm?” He mumbles.

“Watch, Potter,” he snaps. Harry watches the spell between them, bright electric purple and pulsing. It makes his eyes ache, but he can’t look away now that he’s paid attention to it. A hot pink, fuzzy waving line travels between them, snapping like lightning and dropping up and down, up and down. Harry’s eyes nearly cross trying to follow it.

“Well!” The healer says. She waves her wand and the diagnostic spell disappears. “You’ve got a perfectly healthy, natural soul bond here.”

Harry blanches. He hears Malfoy’s teeth clench, he thinks.

“Natural soul bond?” He asks. The healer is already turned to the desk, scribbling on her sheets of parchment. “What-”

“A natural soul bond,” she begins, scribbling some more, “... occurs when two or more individuals find themselves in a strong relationship, be it familial, romantic, or platonic. This is ancient magic. All families have these types of soul bonds with each other, though the familial type of soul bond is usually not one that is quite so _felt_ , as you both have noticed your bond to be.”

Malfoy shifts in his seat, Harry can feel the bond shift along with him. He is hyper aware of it now, that buzzing feeling between them, on a plane he knows his magic to be on.

“Romantic soul bonds are usually professionally administered, to those who desire them, often in the case of a marriage. Wizarding marriages are, more or less, simply the administering of this bond to the recipients. However, in rare cases,” she ceases scribbling and turns to grin down at them, “the bond manifests itself. This is in the case of those who have a _particularly_ strong connection, and is exceedingly rare. Some even say that the bond can only manifest itself when the recipients are soulmates, though that has not in any way been proven in a magical science capacity.”

Harry feels suddenly as if he would like to faint. Malfoy gives a strange whimper beside him. Harry can’t look at him.

“I have all the necessary literature here for you both. No need to do anything differently than you are now, the bond is new and will strengthen with time. I would say that you do need to remain near each other for the time being, anywhere from three weeks to two months abouts while the bond calibrates itself. I do assume that you have already been in close quarters though, for the bond to form. Living together?”

Harry nods. He’s growing numb, and he can’t believe that his look is not a hint for the healer to drop her grin. She continues with much of the same, though.

“I would recommend you remain in the same house. You will notice, if you part, that you will become exceedingly uncomfortable and that the discomfort will only grow worse as time passes. This _will_ drain your magical energy. Bonds are meant to strengthen a couple, bring their magic together. The bond needs to become used to the two of you. Simply nurture it.”

And with that, far too little information, in Harry’s opinion, they are released into the world with a mere handful of pamphlets.

When they are back in Harry’s living room, he turns to confront Malfoy finally. His purposeful silence at St. Mungo’s and then all through their stop at his apartment to gather his necessities has been grating on his ears far more than his rambling could be in any other situation.

“Come back,” he says as Malfoy attempts to escape him to the hallway. “What’s wrong with you? Besides the obvious, that is. Can you, like, support me? We’re going to have to figure this out together, or else I’ll call Hermione, or someone, I need to talk about it or I’ll scream, Malfoy.”

Malfoy turns back to face Harry, pulling a cigarette out of the top of his leather boot. He stuffs it in his mouth hurriedly and lights it with a snap of his fingers. He closes his eyes to take a drag and a little line Harry has never seen before manifests between his eyebrows. Harry waits.

“It’s nothing. Can we just get settled?” Malfoy spits this through a thick cloud of smoke and rage. But Harry sees how his hands are shaking.

“It’s not nothing, you know it’s not nothing. I’m fucking begging you to talk to me, Malfoy,” Harry hates the desperation in his own voice. He grips the back of the couch.

“Well, I’m… I’m not in the mood, Potter. I need some time to really let this, well, sink in or something, I’ve not been prepared for this sort of thing happening to me, certainly not with _you_ of all people, ancient magic my arse, I’ve half a mind to make my way back and-”

“Malfoy. Look at me. Please?” Harry’s head is beginning to pound. “I need you to-”

“Fine. Fine! I’m sorry. Potter, I am sorry, so horribly sorry and regretful of everything that’s, that’s happened and everything that will happen now.”

“What?” Harry’s jaw has dropped. Malfoy has a hand covering his eyes, now, like he wants to peek at Harry but can’t allow himself to.

“You know what. I’m sorry, Potter. In advance.”

“I want to know what you mean. I’m not angry with you, if that’s what you’re thinking. We got ourselves into this, it’s not your fault alone. Don’t you remember, when I was at your apartment-”

“I mean I just don’t want to cause you any trouble, Potter.”

“What are you saying? I’m not in trouble because of you, I rather like you, like I said, I wasn’t lying to you, I mean the bond is indicative-”

“Potter. I’m _say_ ing, I don’t want to cause you any troubles with the populace. I know you never intended to be _with_ me, per se, I mean I will say I myself rather enjoyed the past month but I know you were in it for perhaps, well, different reasons than I. I know what you said, I just… I don’t want you to be _hounded_ , you see. By the Skeeter-types.”

Harry finds his jaw on the floor and picks it off. His cheeks are hot, and despite the aggrieved look on Malfoy’s face he is rather fluttery inside, like he can feel that he is about to get the best present, but doesn’t want to hope that what’s inside is what he believes it to be.

“Draco, I want you,” he whispers. His voice cracks, and he swallows before continuing. His mouth is dry. “I like you. You won’t cause me trouble. We’ll be a power couple, like I said. I wasn’t joking. How could this bond have formed if I was stringing you along but didn’t truly want you?”

“I- I mean-”

“I like you. I want you. I’m bonded to you, I mean,” Harry raises his brows meaningfully. Draco scoffs. “I like you. I-”

“I’m telling you, Potter. When they find out you’re with me, and I wear a miniskirt to the next Ministry event, you’re done for,” he says. Harry’s heart squeezes. He takes both of Draco’s cold hands into his own, clasps them between his palms. Draco comes up into his space unconsciously, one moment he is not there and the next he is breathing into Harry’s mouth. His cigarette has disappeared somewhere.

“I want you in a miniskirt at the next Ministry event. I can’t imagine it any other way,” he says. Draco’s forehead is still wrinkled in angst, and he is biting his bottom lip. “I hope you wear bangles, too. And a puffy shirt. I won’t let you dress in stuffy robes. I don’t even really _go_ to Ministry events anymore, Draco.”

“Potter-”

“It’s Harry,” he says. Draco closes his eyes. His long, pale lashes glint softly. “Do you want another cigarette?”

Draco finally laughs, a little huff that makes Harry’s heart jump in his chest. The bond thrills at it, like Draco has thrown it a bone. He nods and Harry pulls him down, onto the low couch, settles his head on the pillow and lies atop him, to the side so he doesn’t crush him. He kisses him slowly, presses his lips to each thin eyebrow.

“I do wear robes,” Draco huffs. “Just open and draped _over_ the look.”

Harry grins, lights Draco a cigarette, still lying on him, and they share it with Harry’s fingers stroking the side of Draco’s neck, up behind his ear, along his hairline. It’s more than they’ve ever spoken about it, and Harry feels immensely drained. He isn’t used to speaking his emotions, and doubts he ever will be. Draco is a welcome diversion, especially when he starts ashing onto Harry’s hardwood floors and he needs to be pinched lightly on the thigh for it.

“Fucking shit, Potter. You are a piece of work. I do declare,” Draco mumbles around the cig. Harry giggles and decides to let the ‘Potter’ go. “You’re lucky I’m sticking with you because I’ve neared the end of my rope time after time. A bloody eccentric…”

Harry lets him go on, stuffing his nose into his neck and closing his eyes, drifting off to Draco’s soft berating monologue. It is never harsher than vague poetry, and the stream of his voice is more comforting than Ron and Hermione, or the voices of a Hogwarts feast, and the knowledge that he has found such a thing fills him with the heavy sands of sleep.

-

Harry wakes from a nightmare for the first time since Egypt early that morning, or very late that night. He knows the score by now, the panicky sweaty bright lights behind his eyes type of feeling that he wakes with, the gasp and pounding heart. He doesn’t remember the dream when he wakes, just shadowy thoughts of snakes and something creeping behind a door. And then, Draco snoring softly beside him, one of his long hands splayed across Harry’s side, thumb to his ribcage. 

It lulls him to calm, but he cannot fall back to sleep. He slowly extracts himself from Draco’s octopus grip, shoves on his glasses, tiptoes out of the bedroom and down the dark stairway. His house will always be creepy at night, he’s resigned himself to that fact.

The fire starts up in the kitchen fireplace as he enters the room. The house has gotten used to his night owl ways, and is always ready for him to come down at odd hours and snap the lights on, the stove top burner to warm hot chocolate. He settles in at the kitchen table with yesterday’s _Quibbler_ and a packet of biscuits that had been left open on the counter. His eyes are tired, but his body is hopped up on adrenaline. He always feels like a teenager when this happens. His fear of the unknown enemy is thrumming through his veins, and no amount of common sense will change that. He can feel the bond, too, pulling slightly upstairs to Draco. He wonders if that will change once it settles further, that constant itching feeling.

“You alright?”

Harry jumps, drops his biscuit on the floor. Draco is standing in the doorway, rumpled. His hair is sticking up in the front. Harry’s heart skips a beat, thrills at the sight of him. He is so gone.

“I- yeah, I didn’t mean to wake you. Nightmare,” he says. Draco nods, rubs his hand across his face. There is a crease on his cheek from the pillowcase almost parallel with the scar on his chin. “You should go back to sleep.”

“Come back with me,” Draco says. He crosses the room to Harry and puts a warm hand on his shoulder. “Do you do this often? Lose sleep like this? You’re all settled in.”

Harry nods.

“Well, not so much since I got comfortable in Egypt. It was like I was so distracted all the time, with work and everything being so new, I forgot to have nightmares. And yeah, so…”

Draco is looking at Harry so earnestly that he trails off into nothing. He shrugs helplessly. Draco sighs.

“Come up to bed. I’ll help you sleep,” he says. He grips Harry’s chin and pulls him up for a chaste kiss, dragging him up further to stand. “‘Cmon,” he whispers against his lips. Harry nods.

In bed, Harry has never, not with anyone, been held like this. Draco places him atop his chest, on his back, his head right below his chin so that he can stroke his hair. He holds Harry right over his heart and strokes his hair, massages his scalp without a word. And then Harry is asleep, before he can tell Draco just how much what he is doing isn’t working one bit.

The next morning, Harry wakes at noon and Draco is nowhere to be found, but the bond is not unhappy so he knows that he is somewhere in the house. He finds him, groggy with too much sleep, on the loveseat reading the _Quibbler_ Harry had left on the kitchen table, smoking and drinking out of his morning coffee mug. He is still in his silk pajamas, and Harry finds himself crawling onto him, slotting himself into the space where he is not to fit perfectly. Draco ignores him but to rearrange his arms so that he can keep reading. Harry hums into his chest and kisses him there on his pajama shirt.

Harry is so comfortable and satisfied to his core that he falls asleep again and wakes up refreshed rather than even further muddled in the head. Draco is sleeping too when he wakes, and Harry leaves him to rest to go cast a _tempus_ and make an early dinner curry for the both of them. He starts another pot of coffee while he is in the kitchen and then marvels at how easy it feels to be with Draco. Only one day of this and he is already comfortable. It’s likely to do with how they had already been codependent, since that party at Luna’s, except he still thought that there was some kind of conflict bound to start up at every moment, then.

Now, he knows that if there is petty conflict the bond will cast over it like a cool river. Harry finds it soothing already, to have something there connecting him.

He is playing the Stones maybe too loudly when Draco comes stumbling into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes and lighting a joint. Harry pulls him in, swaying from side to side, and dances him a little welcome. Draco groans but doesn’t move to remove himself from Harry’s arms.

“Dinner? It’s only afternoon, darling,” he says sleepily. Harry pulls away then, to fingers still tight on his shirt, to check the stove, fiercely ignoring the hot blush creeping across his cheeks.

“We’ve been sleeping for a day, we have to eat. Decorum be damned,” Harry says. Draco puts all ten fingers in his hair, scratches his scalp, tilts his head back so that he can kiss his forehead. He runs fingers down Harry’s neck, sticks his joint in Harry’s mouth.

“I hate you,” he says softly. Harry rolls his eyes, stirs the pot. By the time they are eating he is high enough to be hungry.

“Do you think we should invite Hermione over?” Draco asks once they are finished and sprawled across the tabletop. He is drawing circles on the wood with his finger. Harry watches his perfect fingernail and his sweet knuckle. “To tell her, I mean.”

Harry nods. Shakes his head. He doesn’t know. He looks over to the cupboards, finger printed in day glo by Teddy.

“I guess we should. Merlin, she’s going to be so pissed at me,” he says. Draco snorts.

“How could she be angry? It’ll just be another puzzle for her to solve. And another soap drama, you know how she adores those,” he says. “She loves you, she’ll pity you.”

Harry sighs.

“What? I think _I_ know. I think I know her better than you do, just because I’m a Gemini and therefore better at psychoanalysis,” Draco offers. Harry laughs and stands to walk over and grip the collar of his pajama shirt. “What?”

“It’s gross how much I like you,” Harry says. He is too sleepy and high to not tell him. Draco hates it immediately, it’s visible on his face how much he hates it, but Harry just laughs at him and trails his fingers up to where Draco’s hair is parted in the middle. “I know you don’t think you like me as much as I like you. But you do, you do.”

Draco shakes his head, but he is squinting and pulling down the corners of his mouth desperate not to smile. Harry puts his bare toes over Draco’s and watches his shiver happen, all the way up his spine.

“You do,” Harry whispers.

“Write Hermione,” Draco says. “Or Floo her right now.”

“Whatever you want,” Harry says. He pulls away. “Anything you want.”

“You are fucked up,” Draco says. And Hermione hears it over the floo.

“Who is intoxicated?” She asks. Harry rolls his eyes, coughs a bit on smoke and floo powder. “Ah. I see. To what do I owe the pleasure of this afternoon call?”

“Well, dear, it does seem to be that Potter here and I have been soul bonded, by virtue of just how much we enjoy being in each others’ company,” Draco says. He is scathing, but his cheeks are reddening dramatically and Harry can hear the fondness behind his sharp tone. Hermione’s brows fly to the chimney, and she blinks a few times, processing.

“I’m coming through, Draco, make room Harry,” she says. Just as Harry had suspected. And she does, hair in two exploding pigtails and white t-shirt covered in dirt, presumably from Ron’s newest gardening project. “Wow, Draco, tell me everything.”

Firstly, Draco expresses deep disgust at how he is still in his pajamas, and insists on going up to change into something more suitable for guests, but Harry and Hermione just follow him, standing around as he picks his outfit, a suede miniskirt and flowing blouse. Hermione laughs hysterically at the story of their bonding, and Draco gifts her a sparkling electric blue wrap dress he insists has never fit him right, despite Harry knowing he could have fixed it up after getting it from Eva’s the other day.

And as Harry sits patiently, listening to the two of them fawn over the academic aspect of Harry’s recent dramatic life-changing event, he realizes that this may just be his new reality, until the day he dies. And he doesn’t hate it.

Before long, Draco and Hermione have books spread out across the coffee table in the small parlor, the antique one with the leg screwed back on when Ron fell backwards onto it with they were twenty and wasted listening to Aerosmith, and they’ve ordered a curry and are all talking late into the night.

“Well, if you like it and think it’s all right to keep the bond, I mean, it seems like you do, a bit, then I would say you’ll just need those three-ish weeks to keep close, then you should be all right,” Hermione says around a mouthful of chicken. “I mean, it’s not like your lives will change dramatically once the bond has settled. You’ll be able to live your lives as you did before, it’s just a connection point, really.” Her dark purple lipstick is smeared a little on her chin, and Draco reaches over to her to wipe it with his napkin.

“Yes, I do think so,” Draco says. Harry is a little drunk and much too comfortable on the fainting couch, wrapped in a knit blanket. Draco is playing Walburga’s collection of opera on the gramophone. “Harry, what do you think?”

“Think it’s rather lovely,” Harry says, low. Draco burns up with a flush, and Hermione stifles a giggle. “‘M not worried about it much.”

“Well,” Draco says. “That’s that, then.” He nervously pats his lap in finality.

“That’s that,” Hermione says, and levitates the bottle of gin from the ancient cabinet over to where she is sitting in the pink winged armchair.

The two of them get roaring drunk as Harry watches happily from the couch. Draco turns up the music and tries to teach Hermione how to waltz, but she is so drunk that she ends up nearly destroying the coffee table again. She ends up sitting on the floor, hiccoughing as Draco acts out Puccini’s librettos from memory.

Ron comes later, much later, too late to enjoy any part of it, right from the Ministry.

“Maybe I should just take her home, then,” he sputters as Draco pulls Harry up from his nest to drag him around in circles, Hermione nodding off on the chair.

“So lovely, Ron, of them to be married. Don’t you think?”

Draco’s lips are on Harry’s neck and his fingers scratch his scalp a little.

“Lovely of us to be married,” he mumbles. Harry certainly does not whimper a little in his exhaustion and the warmth of Draco’s cheek. “Lovely.”

“‘S lovely,” Harry says. Draco takes his hands and brings them to his waist. Harry’s eyes are closed, and he breathes deep into Draco’s hair. He smells like smoke and a little of St. Mungo’s, but mostly of his cologne and his shampoo and leave-in conditioners. He smells like the house.

“Are you sniffing me?” Harry laughs.

“You smell like me,” he says. Draco laughs a laugh Harry has never heard before.

“I smell like you. And what’s that supposed to mean, then?”

“Means we’re married,” Harry says. He is so sleepy, and content. Draco holds him tighter, and Harry’s stomach twitches. By the time the record stops and they pull apart, Ron and Hermione have gone, and the lights have dimmed on their own for bedtime. The whole house is hushed in the early autumn night. It reminds Harry of Hogwarts, of studying in the common room, walking to class through crunching leaves and lying down in the cool grass of the quidditch pitch after a long practice in the cool air.

“Move in with me,” he whispers to Draco as they climb the stairs. Draco stops him and presses him against the railing, kisses him hard.

“I’d thought that was implied,” he says when he pulls away, and Harry has to pull him in again.

“Draco…”

“What, Potter.”

“I want you to call me Harry,” Harry whines. Draco huffs a soft laugh.

“Alright, Harry. Sorry. What is it, my dear,” he says. Harry collapses onto him.

“I love you,” he says. Breathes it into Draco’s ear, like someone is straining to listen, he feels like it is so private it needs to be just between them.

“Harry. I’ll tell you a secret. It’s bigger than my closet, bigger than my Muggles,” Draco says into the dark hall. The house is big and comforting around them. Their home, Harry thinks. His heart aches. “I love you, too.”

-

By the time October comes, chilly and pouring rain as usual, Draco has grown his hair into a cropped bob, just at his jawline, and Harry has to wait for him to moisturize it far longer whenever he washes it. Sometimes he still slicks it back and Harry spends a lot of time looking at the shiny hair on the back of his neck. He likes to watch it disappearing beneath a heavy cashmere scarf or a bright red turtleneck that shouldn’t look good on him but does.

Harry has been fielding letters from McGonagall for far too long to be able to do something about them by the time term starts, and he tells himself that he had wanted to, sure, except that he had gotten married sort of all of the sudden, and he had so much to think about, so he couldn’t possibly take the job of teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts on such short notice.

Fall seems like a new beginning for Harry. It’s been years since he’s lived an English fall, and he and Draco sit out in the garden for hours in the middle of the day when it isn’t so cold, Draco reading and Harry drifting in and out of sleep. Draco sprawls himself out on the outdoor furniture gracefully, very long and malleable. 

Draco comes back from work on weekday evenings exhausted, Floos in from the castle much too late, sometimes, despite having a room there. The bond itches when they are apart for too long, and Harry very much enjoys privately that Draco clearly prefers sleeping with him than sleeping alone in the castle, no matter how late or if Harry is already sleeping by the time he returns.

Draco had settled in quickly, despite having so many things to bring over. The second, larger parlor had been converted into his closet, and Harry often spends mornings there while Draco plans an outfit, sitting on the window seat, drinking his coffee and commenting on his choices lazily.

It’s on a late night beside the roaring fireplace in the living room that they plan their wedding party- of sorts. Harry doesn’t know what to call it but that, and every time he does Draco’s nose scrunches in distaste. So Harry pours him white wine, and tasks him with writing invitations in his signature green ink while he goes through the list of must-haves Draco had been compiling since they’d thought of the whole thing. He absolutely vetoes peacocks and ice sculptures but is more willing to bend on some of the other still quite fanciful decor wishes.

“Harry,” Draco says, after half an hour of silence.

“Hm?” 

“What about a live band.” It isn’t a question, and all Harry has to do is look his way for him to nod grimly and accept his defeat.

“Didn’t think so,” he says.

“It’s a small party, Draco. I’ve already said yes to the fucking decorations, and the music selection for the turntable, and for the literal feast of charcuterie- can’t I-”

“You can. You can say no,” Draco says primly. Harry sighs.

“What if you set the dress code terms, then,” Harry says. It distracts him long enough that Harry can start a pot of coffee and order pizza for dinner.

-

At the party Draco is wearing an out purple, blue, and red patterned suit with big red velvet lapels and a silver polka dotted tie, his diamond chandelier earring with red strappy clog platforms and sparkling gold stockings. He dresses Harry too, in Sirius’ leather jacket and blue velvet pants. Harry isn’t too sure that they match or that his white t-shirt measures up to Draco’s outfit, but is comforted by the satisfied look Draco gives the both of them when they stand in the mirror in the front hall.

“Your suit looks familiar, your whole outfit does, really. Have I seen you in that before-”

“It’s from a cousin,” Draco says airily, and offers no more. Harry frowns, but lets it be. All these fashion secrets. He can’t stop looking at the flush on Draco’s cheeks. “We look good.”

“We do,” Harry says. He wraps his arm around Draco’s little waist.

“We’re…”

“We’re married.”

“Well, not really,” Draco says. Harry squeezes his arse so he jumps a little, scowls at Harry in the mirror.

“We are. And you like it.”

“Well. My, my. Whatever will I do about that.”

Draco is in a tizzy before the party starts, all day he had been running back and forth between the front and the back of the house, perfecting the fairy lights in the back garden and setting the tables himself, absolutely refusing a helping hand, and then later showering for what seems like hours, and then Harry gets his dick in him for a while and shuts him up which is lovely, except that he then has to shower a second time.

As the time approaches, Harry dutifully sits in the hallway as Draco obsessively checks his eyeshadow in the hall mirror, insisting that it has the best lighting in the house, up until the moment Ron and Hermione arrive, with Ginny trailing behind them.

“I brought liquor,” she says, kissing Draco and then Harry on the cheek, shoving the bottle of fancy gin into Draco’s hands. He nearly coos at the sight of it, and Harry sends Ginny a grateful look. She smirks at him as Draco exclaims over how impossible it must have been for her to get it, however did she manage?

“Travelling. You have got to come to a few games, you know, I can get you both tickets and you could come on weekends, when you’re not both teaching-”

“Who said anything about both of us-”

“Oh, come on, Harry. You know you’re going to take the job. You’ll be the married couple of Hogwarts, the kids will be fascinated by you two,” she says. Ron and Hermione have already gone to the kitchen and are exclaiming faintly over the table spread.

“That’s exactly why I’m not too sure,” he says. “It’s much too late, anyways, term has already started-”

“He will.” Harry looks to Draco in shock. “What? You think Minerva hasn’t already talked about it with me? I know all about this disaster waiting to happen.”

“Draco- ‘cmon, ‘s our wedding, can we not-”

“Alright, but assume we’ll be picking this discussion up sometime before spring. Daphne has already had to take over Defense for two months because you’ve got cold feet, and she doesn’t mind it, but that’s just because she loves to work herself to death, you see.”

“I-”

“Draco, such a lovely spread! Everything is just darling,” Hermione comes through the hall to rejoin them. “And the garden looks so beautiful, with the fall colors, Harry. You’ve really outdone yourselves this time.”

“Thank you, ‘Mione,” Harry says gratefully. The bell rings, then, and Harry turns quickly to let Luna and Pansy in.

Everyone comes fairly on-time, dressed in what Draco had written as being a Studio 54 theme. They all look lovely, and high, and Harry’s lips are soon sore from kissing everyone hello. He gets drunk in the welcome line, with everyone passing him one champagne flute after another, Draco by his side so warm and lovely, charming and on his best party behavior.

The lights in the big house have been dimmed and Draco has set up colorful fairy lights around each room and draped all of the lamps with silk scarves. Despite the crowd being fairly small, the party is loud and joyus, and Harry has a thrill inside of his stomach at the idea of Christmas, and New Years, and how good of a match he and Draco are and what they must look like together, standing as a unit and hosting.

By the time dinner and drinks are served out in the garden, it is pouring rain and freezing. But Draco’s charms on the tent hold, and it is warm and golden inside. Harry and Draco sit beside each other at the head of the table, with everyone around them watching and laughing and talking amongst each other, Narcissa and Molly having gotten over things some time ago, a fascinating development Harry was not privy to, Arthur drunk and asking Hermione stupid questions about dentistry, Pansy and Ginny doing shots all through the night with Percy, somehow, and Blaise and Charlie sitting close enough that Draco keeps sending them a suspicious eye. Teddy sits yawning beside Victoire until Andromeda finally pats his shoulder and announces that it is much too far past the children’s bedtime, bringing them both home despite their insistence otherwise.

They all eat slowly, drinking and toasting Draco and Harry so often Harry has whiplash from turning back and forth to opposite sides of the table. Ron makes a speech that lasts a few minutes too long, and Hermione is too drunk to bother pulling him back to his seat, simply stuffing her face into his hip and plugging her ears. Harry is embarrassed almost the whole time, so many people give him and Draco genuine well-wishes that it catches him entirely off-guard. He doesn’t know why he assumed it to be any different, but he is filled with love for all of them. Draco sometimes shrinks into his shoulder, turning and hiding his face behind Harry’s back in humiliation, but a hand on his pretty knee pulls him back to the party, simple as that. The bond seems to enjoy the attention and the sparks everyone keeps sending off with their wands at the end of each toast, for it is warm between them and growing thicker, more full of the cool, effortless magic Harry can feel as being Draco’s. His fingers tingle with it, and he chain smokes to soothe the feeling of being so in love it makes him on edge.

After the meal, when everyone is drunk and happy, they migrate inside to the small ballroom that Harry believes to be Luna’s best work, for it looks like the Great Hall on a stormy night. Draco spells on the music, and their guests either settle into the chairs and couches they had set up or begin to dance.

George comes up to Harry and Draco immediately, firewhiskey in hand, and claps Draco hard on the shoulder. It seems unforgiving, Draco winces and Harry chokes down a laugh.

“Happy for you, Bowie. And you, Harry. Who would have thought, you two, in the end. Cute suit,” he winks at Draco. Harry is lost.

“Yes, it’s the original,” Draco says. He is leaning down to speak to George, and Harry laughs at the sight of them. “I have most of the originals.”

“I’ll have to come and see them sometime! Watch the drink,” George says. He smacks a kiss on both of their cheeks, and waltzes off to Angelina and Luna on the dance floor.

“What did he mean-”

“Harry, you know most Muggle artists are really wizards, yeah? Half-bloods, usually.” Draco grins lopsidedly, and Harry can suddenly see it, the resemblance.

“You’re kidding-”

“What would I have to gain, really, in lying,” Draco says dryly.

“Two peas in a pod, you two,” Harry says. Draco laughs and takes his arm. It sends a shock to Harry’s heart, like he’s forgotten it, that Draco is in love with him as he is in love with Draco.

They dance for hours, with Ginny and Luna and then, when they are really drunk, with Pansy and Percy, who have somehow formed an alliance Harry believes to possibly be more about leverage at the Ministry than Percy likely thinks. Draco does not stop touching Harry the entire time, always a finger looped in his, never allowing him to be taken by another partner. Hermione puts on Puccini, this time, to make Draco laugh, but it just makes Harry’s eyes fill and Draco smacks him gently on the shoulder.

“You are silly. You are _not_ crying at our wedding party,” he snaps. Harry laughs. “It’s horribly tacky.”

“Draco,” he yells over the music, which has seemed to get louder. Draco leans down to lend him an ear. “You’re my baby.” He kisses that very ear, quick and smacking.

Draco turns, shocked and disgusted at him, but his nose and cheeks are bright red. Harry laughs, gathers him up, and kisses him soundly. Draco pulls away, pulls back to kiss him again, pulls away.

“I am most certainly not,” he says. Harry giggles, falls forwards into his neck, both hands on velvet lapels.

“You are. I love you. Say it.”

“I love you, too?” Harry’s heart melts. Draco says it so genuinely, but with such honest confusion.

“Yeah. Well, no. Say you’re my baby. Please,” Harry cups his cheeks in his hands. “You’re my baby.”

“ _Okay_ , I’m your baby,” Draco says. He looks like he is trying not to die. Harry kisses him for it. The bond adores it.

“You two are insane! And disgusting! I love you for it!” Ginny screams past them, dragged off of the dance floor by Neville, who seems to be coming upon a nervous breakdown.

They stay up all night, most of them. Everyone over thirty goes home before it gets really disgusting, but the rest of them stay up laughing and screaming and kissing until the sunrise sprawls across the floor of the ballroom through the big stained glass windows. Harry pulls Draco into a corner, then, kissing him hard and long and tired. Draco kisses back like he is sleepy but tries to burrow himself into Harry, a knee between his legs and his hands in Harry’s pockets. They lie on the floor with a discarded armchair pillow beneath Draco’s head, Harry’s chin on his chest, looking up at him, up his nose, around his neck, at his jaw, all of those lovely parts.

They eat a bastardized breakfast, early and made up of leftovers from dinner and whatever Hermione can find in the cupboards, all at the kitchen table yawning and in their party clothes. Ginny falls asleep on Neville’s lap, and Luna wanders off to the attic in the middle of their meal. Pansy and Hermione get into an involved argument about Ministry corruption.

All of them together, somehow, is the most romantic part of it to Harry. For all of them to see him with Draco, and for it to be long enough past for them to take it in stride, how lucky he must be.

And if the next morning, when Draco has gone to bed and everyone has gone home, Harry sends off a quick letter to McGonagall, Draco will be none the wiser, fast asleep with his eyeshadow smeared down his cheeks and his lips soft and open. _It will just be a late wedding present_ , he thinks.


End file.
